Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373

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Computer-Aided Design
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cad

Visibility-based conformal cooling channel generation for rapid tooling

K.M. Au, K.M. Yu ∗ , W.K. Chiu
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong

article info abstract

Article history: In plastic injection moulding process, cooling channel design is an essential factor that affects the quality
Received 2 November 2009 of the moulded parts and the productivity of the process. Non-uniform cooling or long cooling cycle time
Accepted 2 January 2011 would result if a poorly designed cooling channel is adopted. Due to limitations of traditional machining
processes, the cooling channel is usually formed from straight-line drilled holes and only simple shapes
Keywords: are allowed, regardless of the shape complexity of the part being moulded. With the advent of rapid
Visibility
tooling technology, cooling channels in complex shapes can now be possible. However, there are not
Cooling channel
Rapid tooling
many design methodologies for supporting this type of cooling channel. In this paper, a methodology
Polyhedral terrain called visibility-based cooling channel generation is proposed for automatic preliminary cooling channel
design for rapid tooling. The cooling process between a mould surface and a cooling channel is considered
analogous to whether they can be visible from each other. Without loss of generality, the mould surface
is approximated by a polyhedral terrain and is normally offset. A number of point light sources together
that can illuminate the whole polyhedral terrain are assigned to suitable terrain offset vertices. A cooling
channel is then generated by connecting all the assigned light sources. When comparing the conventional
verification and redesign methods by melt flow analysis, computer-aided design and, a better design of
cooling channel for its mould surface results in a short time independent of the experience of mould
engineer.
© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Plastic injection moulding process is a common manufacturing
process to make consumer products, engineering parts, medical
devices, etc. This near net shape process is usually adopted in
the rapid product development strategy for producing the final
products. In general, this strategy has the characteristics of short
lead time, high product quality, and low production cost. To take
the benefit of the strategy, the injection mould, which must be
fabricated for producing products in the process, has to be properly
designed. During a plastic injection moulding cycle, the mould
must be cooled so that the moulded part can be solidified and
cooled to room temperature before opening the mould. Normally, a
cooling channel must be incorporated into the mould. The cooling
performance of the cooling channel affects the quality of the
moulded parts and the productivity of the process. Part distortion
will occur if the part is non-uniformly cooled. The cycle time for
moulding a part will be longer if the cooling effectiveness of the
cooling channel is poor. Normally, a plastic injection mould is
formed by traditional machining processes (TMP’s), for example,
straight-line hole drilling or milling. Due to the limitations of
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2766 6603; fax: +852 2362 5267.
E-mail address: mfkmyu@polyu.edu.hk (K.M. Yu).
0010-4485/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cad.2011.01.001
TMP’s, only cooling channels in simple shapes can be adopted and
a practical cooling channel in a mould is normally formed from
straight-line drilled holes [1–3]. In this case, a cooling channel in a
complex shape, such as a conformal cooling channel (CCC) shown
in Fig. 1, may not be possible. In designing a CCC, its actual size
and location are determined based on the experience of the mould
designer. Different cooling channel designs may result for the same
mould by different mould designers [4,5].
In recent years, rapid tooling (RT) technology has been devel-
oped [6,7]. It can be considered as an extension of rapid proto-
typing (RP) technology and it focuses on the fabrication of moulds
rather than on the making of physical prototypes. There are numer-
ous RT processes and they can be classified as either direct or indi-
rect. In direct RT processes, a metal mould (called a rapid mould) is
directly manufactured from the process and no intermediate pro-
cedures are required [8]. In the indirect RT process, a master pat-
tern is required and other intermediate procedures are carried out
for making the mould. Some of the typical processes are SLS-based
(selective laser sintering) RT processes [9,10]. Due to the charac-
teristics of the RP technology (building a part layer-by-layer), parts
with internal structures or internal voids can be made. As a result, a
cooling channel in a complex shape can thus be possible in RT and
CCC can be introduced to a rapid mould. To fabricate a plastic in-
jection mould, its geometry model must be designed in a CAD plat-
form. Based on the CAD model of a moulded part, the parting lines,
 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373
Fig. 1. An example of conformal cooling channel [47].
the undercut geometries, and the parting surfaces of the part are
identified and the corresponding mould halves (upper and lower)
are formed. The CCC is then incorporated into the mould model.
Other mould plates are added and a complete geometric model of
a mould is formed.
1.1. Injection mould cooling system design
General rules for injection mould cooling system design are
found in different handbooks or the literature Refs. [11,12]. Many
mould designers make use of these rules to design the appropriate
cooling channel system. However, these rules are mainly applied
to manual traditional cooling channel system designs.
Recently, some research works about injection mould cooling
design have been found in different papers in the literature. For ex-
ample, Li [13] proposed a new design synthesis method and an al-
gorithm for part feature recognition to optimize the cooling system
of a complex shape plastic part in the initial design stage. The plas-
tic part was developed from a complex shape into simpler shape
features and combined with their own cooling channel portions. In
2005, Qiao [14] developed a systematic computer-aided approach
to achieve an optimal cooling channel design. Various issues on op-
timization processes for cooling channel design were investigated.
In 2008, Li et al. [15] proposed a configuration space method for the
layout design of the cooling system inside the mould. However, au-
tomatic methods for the design and generation of cooling channels
are mainly found in the traditional injection mould design and new
methodology has to be investigated in order to design CCC for rapid
moulds.
1.2. Verification for the injection mould cooling system design
After a mould and its cooling channel are designed, computer-
aided engineering (CAE) or computational fluid mechanics (CFD)
analysis [16,17] will be carried out in order to assess the cooling
performance of the designed channel. Based on the results and
the experience of the mould designer, the cooling channel may be
modified or even re-designed in case acceptable results are not
achieved. This trial-and-error process will be repeated until an
acceptable design is obtained. Normally, the CAE or CFD analyses
are time-consuming and proficient skills are required to perform
the analyses. Due to the long analysis time and large number of
analysis runs, these analyses may not be suitable in the initial stage
of a mould design cycle.
To shorten the processing time for designing a cooling channel,
the cooling channel design must be consistent without being
dependent on the mould designer’s experience. The initial design
must be close to the solution provided by CAE analysis.
357
2. Literature reviews
2.1. Conventional cooling channels and devices
There are many types of cooling channel design that are suit-
able for mould halves with complex geometries or internal struc-
tures and these can be found in the literature [18,19]. For example,
Pye et al. [20] mentioned a straight-line drilled cooling channel, a
stepped type cooling channel, and an angled type cooling channel
for different shapes of mould surfaces. Normally, a simple shape
cooling channel is set up inside a mould plate by conventional ma-
chining processes such as boring, milling, or drilling. However, the
main problem of this type of cooling channel is the non-uniform
distance between the channel and the mould surfaces. Even the
drilled holes of the channel can be set up with some angles be-
tween them in order to morph the shape of the mould surface, the
improvement in the cooling uniformity is not obvious. A satisfac-
tory uniform cooling performance of the moulded part cannot be
achieved by these cooling channels. In some cases, defects would
be formed on the moulded part due to non-uniform cooling of the
part.
Some other cooling devices can also be incorporated into a
cooling channel in order to enhance the cooling performance of
the channel [21]. For example, a baffle can be incorporated into a
straight-line drilled cooling channel to divert the coolant flow to
critical portions of a mould. A bubbler system can also be used for
spot cooling of critical portions of a mould. For small core pins and
delicate features on the mould surface, a cooling channel cannot be
set up. In these cases, thermal pin which is a sealed tube containing
vapor for transferring heat from one end of the pin to the other
end through evaporation and condensation are used. Normally,
there would still be the cooling uniformity problem in using these
cooling devices.
2.2. Conformal cooling channel design in RT
To solve the cooling uniformity issue in the aforementioned
cooling channels and devices, CCC has been proposed. Conformal
cooling channel (CCC) can be defined as the cooling passageway
which follows the contour of the mould (cavity or core) surface
of an injection mould or RT [22–25]. The benefits of CCC are high
cooling rate and lower cycle time during the injection moulding
process for the parts to be produced. With the advent of the
RT technology, CCC is now possible to be set inside the rapid
moulds and Jacobs [26] proposed the fabrication of mould inserts
with CCC. As mentioned before, to practically build a CCC in a
mould, the geometric model of the CCC must be generated. A
systematic and modular approach for the design of conformal
cooling channel systems was developed and detailed in [27,28].
Some studies were carried out to explore the benefits of CCC
in rapid moulds. Dalgarno et al. [29,30] reported that significant
productivity benefits can be achieved through the use of CCC in
rapid moulds. Saifullah et al. [31] applied finite element analysis
(FEA) to optimize the mould design with CCC. Both cooling times
for CCC and traditional straight-line drilled cooling channels are
studied and a cycle time is reduced by using CCC. Improvement
in part quality can also be achieved by incorporating CCC [32].
Dimla et al. [33] tried to determine an optimal and efficient design
for CCC in the configuration of an injection mould using FEA
and thermal heat transfer analysis. Reduction in cycle time and a
marked improvement in surface quality of a CCC cooled moulded
part are also found. The importance of designing a CCC system in
tooling was also discussed in [34]. Recently, Rannar [35] studied
different factors in mould cooling design (including CCC) in order
to obtain an optimal cooling performance. However, the details of
how to apply the analysis results for CCC modification have not
358 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373
Fig. 2. Visibility between two points.
been found in this literature and the modification is carried out on
a trial-and-error approach.
Without loss of generality, the current designs of CCC’s depend
on the utilization of the mould surface geometries of the products.
Up to now, there are no single solutions or criteria for designing the
geometry of a CCC. The CCC design for a mould surface geometry
can vary. Therefore, the cooling performances of CCC can only be
obtained by CAE analysis or real product checking after the part’s
ejection. The CCC design is only confined to some regions. Some
regions that cannot be cooled by the CCC may have the risk of
different injection defects. These defects cannot be easily checked
by the CAE analysis. Therefore, the geometric design of CCC should
cover the whole mould surface geometry to achieve total cooling
uniformity.
2.3. Applications of visibility technique in industrial applications
Visibility is a fundamental topic that has been applied to differ-
ent applications [36–40], for example, the art gallery problem. The
use of visibility can be extended to injection mould and die design
applications. In 1987, Hui [41] proposed the mouldability of part
design with visibility detection. In 1992, Chen et al. [42] employed
visibility technique to determine the optimal parting directions of
demouldability for injection mould and die design.
This technique can also be extended to the injection moulded
cooling channel design. Visibility technique can be formulated into
heat conduction between mould surface and cooling channel. The
visibility relationship between two points is shown in Fig. 2. Point
A can be completely visible to point B without an obstacle. While
Point C is invisible to point D as they are shielded by a polygon.
Visibility between two points is agreed with the distance transfer.
In an injection mould cooling process, the heat energy from the
polymeric melt transfers from the mould surface (heat source) to
the cooling channel surface (heat sink) (see Fig. 3). The distance
between two points in visibility can be formulated into heat
conduction between the mould’s surface and the cooling channel’s
surface. A visibility-based cooling channel design methodology
via computer-aided injection moulding design (CAIMD) tool is
proposed in this study. Appropriate cooling performance in initial
design of cooling channels to its mould surface can be obtained in
a shorter time and the result is close to CAE analysis.
2.4. Relationship between mould cooling and visibility
Heat energy can be transferred by conduction, convention, and
radiation. In mould cooling, conduction is the main mechanism for
transferring the heat energy of the polymeric melt to the cooling
channel’s surface through the mould material according to the
temperature gradient. The heat conduction from the heat source
Fig. 3. Heat conduction for injection mould cooling process.
to the heat source is shown in Fig. 6. Heat energy located at point
A can be directly conducted to the surface of cooling channel at
point B. Heat energy is conducted along line segment AB. The heat
conduction is reversible if the heat source is located at the surface
of the channel (for heating process). The heat conduction paths
from a heat source to a heat sink can be the shortest distance
linear path or bent ones. Normally, the shortest distance heat flux
is considered as the main one in mould cooling. If there is a heat
insulator between a heat source and a heat sink, i.e. the straight-
line path is blocked, heat flux through curved conductive paths by
passing the insulator can still dissipate heat from the source to the
sink. In this case, the heat source and the heat sink can still be
considered as heat transferable unless the insulator is too large to
block all effective paths. However, it is not the case in the concept
of visibility. Two points are considered as invisible from each other
if there is an obstacle between them, and no curved viewing path
is allowed. The visibility relationship between two points is shown
in Fig. 2. Point A can be completely visible to point B without an
obstacle. While Point C is invisible to point D as they are shielded
by a polygon. For the injection mould cooling process (see Fig. 3),
the heat energy at point A from the polymeric melt transfers from
the mould surface (heat source) to the cooling channel’s surface at
point B (heat sink).
3. Methodology
In the proposed methodology, the phenomenon of heat trans-
ferring from the mould surfaces to the cooling channel is analogous
to the visibility scenario of viewing the mould surfaces from the
cooling channel. A cooling channel is designed such that the whole
mould surfaces are completely visible from it, i.e. a moulded part
can be directly cooled by the cooling channel. As a result, a near-
uniform cooling performance can be achieved and the performance
of a plastic injection moulding process can be enhanced.
3.1. Cooling performance comparison by visibility
In the proposed methodology, only the shortest distance path is
considered as the effective heat conductive path and other curved
conductive paths are not taken into consideration. As a result,
the issue of whether a moulded part can transfer heat directly to
the cooling channel is analogous to whether a mould surface is
visible from the cooling channel and the heat transfer problem
can be considered as analogous to the visibility problem. If heat
is directly transferred from a heat source at the mould’s surface
to a heat sink at the cooling channel, it simply implies that the
corresponding point at the mould surface (heat source) is visible
from the point at the cooling channel (heat sink). In Fig. 4, a
 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373 359

Fig. 4. (a) S1 cannot be observed by the cooling channel and (b) all surfaces are visible from the cooling channel.

Fig. 5. Geometry of a terrain, (a) cross-sectional view and (b) top view.

Fig. 6. Approximation of polyhedral terrain.

cuboid (with five surfaces — S1 to S5 ) and two cooling channel
arrangements are shown. In Fig. 2(a), surface S1 is blocked from the
cooling channel and is invisible from the channel. So this mould
surface is considered as only partially visible from the cooling
channel. In Fig. 2(b), all mould surfaces are completely visible
from the cooling channel. Based on the visibility concept, the latter
example would cool all the surfaces (S1 , S2 , S3 , S4 , and S5 ) when
compared to the former one (S1 , S2 , and S3 ).
3.2. Approximation of a 3D mould surface into a polyhedral terrain
In this study, the injection mould geometry in the CCC genera-
tion is limited to shell solid model for simplification. The solid for
injection mould can be divided into two injection mould halves
(core and cavity). Half solid boundary as mould geometry (cavity
or core) in this study can be represented by polyhedral terrain.
Polyhedral terrain [43,44] can be defined as a simple n-vertex
polyhedron in 3D with one face as the base to which every other
point in the terrain can be joined to the base by a perpendicular
projection line interior to the terrain.
The geometry of a terrain is shown in Fig. 5. Polyhedral terrain
on the mould half geometry can ensure the injection mould
halves to be opened for part ejection. A 3D curved surface can be
approximated into polyhedral terrain (see Fig. 6). The simplified
mould surface as a polyhedral terrain can be offset to another
polyhedral terrain efficiently to design the location of cooling
channel in the following steps.
In this paper, a mould surface (core or cavity) is applied and uti-
lized as the input of the proposed method. To achieve automatic
360 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373
Fig. 7. Geometry of mould cavity, (a) freeform surface and (b) polyhedral terrain approximation.
Fig. 8. Mould cavity surface, (a) pictorial view of a mould cavity (b) mould parting surface from the interior of the mould cavity surface.
Fig. 9. Formulation of the mould half surface model into polyhedral terrain.
design of a preliminary cooling channel, a 3D CAD model of mould
cavity surface is designed by CAD tools (e.g. SolidWorks) as the in-
put. The freeform mould surface model is approximated into poly-
hedral terrain one (see Fig. 7) by linearized approximation [45]. As
the cooling channel design is located inside the mould plate, the
mould parting surface from the interior of the mould cavity plate
is extracted (see Fig. 8). The formulation of the mould surface into
the polyhedral terrain is shown in Fig. 9. The point light sources
as the route of cooling channel are inserted above the polyhedral
terrain.
3.3. Conditions of the proposed methodology
In the above examples, there are no undercut features on the
mould surfaces. However, this is not the case in most of the practi-
cal mould design problems. Other components, such as sliders, are
required and the installation of them may restrict the shape of the
cooling channel, i.e. the cooling channel cannot pass through re-
gions with these components being installed. To assist the devel-
opment of the proposed methodology, the following are assumed:
i. No undercut features are on the mould surfaces (see Fig. 10).
ii. No sliders, thermal pin, side core, and ejector pin are incorpo-
rated into the mould.
iii. The facets of polyhedral terrain are n-sided, while n ≥ 3.
iv. The distance between a heat source at mould surface and a heat
sink at the cooling channel is constant along the whole cooling
channel.
In general, there are different types of light sources — point,
line/wire, or area (see Fig. 11) for illuminating an entity. In the
proposed methodology, the followings are assumed.
i. Only a point light source is taken into consideration and other
light source types will not be employed.
ii. Only direct illumination is taken into consideration for irradi-
ating the mould surface facets. Internal reflection is ignored.
iii. The mould surface is represented by a polyhedral terrain as a
collection of facets.
iv. The point light source is located at a specific position above the
mould surface opposite to the cavity.
3.4. Procedures of the proposed methodology
To design a cooling channel based on the visibility concept,
the mould surface is first approximated by a 3D polyhedral
terrain (℘ ). The polyhedral terrain is normally offset and an offset
polyhedral terrain (℘o ) is formed. A number of point light sources
are positioned at some vertices of the offset polyhedral terrain such
that the polyhedral terrain can be completely illuminated by these
point light sources. These point light sources are then properly
connected and a digraph is generated such that it passes through
all these point light sources. A cooling channel is generated from
this digraph. The workflow of the proposed methodology is shown
in Fig. 12. In this paper, the main focus will be on the development
of the point light source assignment algorithm and the point light
source ordering method.
3.4.1. Classification of facets and edges
To assist the determination of the number of point light sources
required and their positions for completely illuminating all the
facets, each facet itself and all its vertices must be classified as
either convex or non-convex. For a 2D polygonal facet i (Si ), it
is a convex facet if it is a convex set. Otherwise, the facet is a
 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373 361

Fig. 10. (a) Mould cavity surface with undercut feature, (b) ejection interference, and (c) part ejection from the mould cavity surface.

Fig. 11. (a) A point light source, (b) a line/wire light source, and (c) an area light source.

non-convex one. In Fig. 13, examples of convex and non-convex

facets are shown. Obviously, the edge loop of the facet in Fig. 13(a)
is convex. For a non-convex facet, its edge loop has non-convex
vertex (see Fig. 13(b)) or there is at least one internal edge loop or
hole in the facet (see Fig. 13(c)).
For an edge ei of ℘ , it is considered convex if the angle (outside
the polyhedral terrain) between adjacent facets sharing this edge
is greater than 180° (labelled with a positive sign (+)). If the angle
is smaller than 180°, it is classified as a concave one (labelled
with negative sign (−)). For a 3D polyhedron, the convex and non-
convex facets have different combinations of convex and concave
edges (convex or non-convex loops) on the polyhedron. Some
examples of convex and non-convex representations are shown in
Fig. 14. If two adjacent facets are parallel, the angle will be 180°. The
comparison between convex edge, concave edge, and reflex edge
is shown in Fig. 15. In Fig. 16, an example of mould cavity is shown.
The angle θ1 between facet 1 and facet 2 is greater than 180° and so
their common edge e1 is convex. The angle θ2 between facet 2 and
Fig. 12. Workflow of the proposed methodology.
facet 3 is smaller than 180° and their common edge e2 is concave.

Fig. 13. (a) A convex facet, (b) non-convex loop, and (c) non-convex facet with convex loops.
362 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373

Fig. 14. Combinations of convex and concave edges for facet in 3D, (a) convex facet, (b) non-convex facet with 1 concave vertex, and (c) non-convex facet with 2 concave
vertices.

Fig. 15. (a) Convex edge, (b) concave edge, and (c) reflex edge.

Fig. 16. Edge classification in a polyhedral terrain.

 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373 363

Table 1
Illumination states of different facet/edge combinations.
Class Class set symbol Facet type Edge type Illumination by a point light source
Convex edges Concave edges

1 Fc1 Convex All None Complete

2 Fc2 Convex None All Complete
3 Fc3 Convex Some Some Complete
4 Fc4 Non-convex All None Complete
5 Fc5 Non-convex None All Partial
6 Fc6 Non-convex Some Some Partial

Table 2
The number of direct illumination facets for each offset vertex.
Offset vertex Number of direct Offset vertex Number of direct
(Voi ) illumination facet (nfi ) (Voi ) illumination facet (nfi )

Vo1 2 Vo9 4
Vo2 2 Vo10 4
Vo3 2 Vo11 4
Vo4 2 Vo12 4
Vo5 3 Vo13 4
Vo6 3 Vo14 4
Vo7 3 Vo15 4
Vo8 3 Vo16 4

3.4.3. Point light source assignment

Fig. 17. Facets offsetting from a polyhedral terrain.
The angle θ3 between the mould plate surface and facet 1 is smaller
than 180° and their common edge e3 is also concave. The mould
plate surface (base) is omitted in this paper as it does not affect the
plastic part’s heat transfer. To illuminate a facet, a point light source
assigned to a facet must be at a position above the facet. It can be
obtained by normally offsetting the mould cavity facet’s vertices
and selecting one of the offset vertices as the point light source’s
position (Fig. 17). After a facet and all its edges are classified, the
facet can be determined whether it can be completely or partially
illuminated by a point light source. The facet/edge classification
combinations are summarized in Table 1. As a simple convex
polyhedron is a convex set, any two points inside it can be visible to
each other. Therefore, any boundary vertex in the offset facet can
also illuminate the whole original facet.
Examples of different facet/edge combination classes are illus-
trated in Fig. 18. For a facet belonging to Classes 1, 2, 3 or 4, it can
be completely illuminated by a point light source at any one of its
offset vertices. For other classes, a facet can only be partially illu-
minated by its point light source because some regions of the facet
would be blocked by other facets in the polyhedral terrain from the
light source. To completely illuminate the facets of these classes,
more point light sources must be assigned.
3.4.2. Decomposition of partially illuminated facets
For a mould cavity facet belonging to Classes 1 to 4, only one
point light source on its offset is sufficient to completely illuminate
it regardless of the type of its edges being convex or concave.
For a facet belonging to Class 5 or Class 6, more than one light
source is needed. The facet needs to be decomposed into convex
sub-facets until the decomposition results belong to Classes 1,
2, 3, or 4. An example is shown in Fig. 19. A Class 6 facet
is decomposed into four sub-facets and each one can then be
completely illuminated from a point light source on any of the sub-
facet’s offset vertex.
In general, the number of vertices (nv,s ) is unchanged after the
facet decomposition procedure. Though a number of decomposed
edges are introduced, these decomposed edges are reflex ones and
can be considered to behave like convex edges.
For setting the position of a point light source to a polyhe-
dral terrain, a normal offsetting process based on Rossignac’s ap-
proach [46] will be employed. The facets from the mould cavity or
core polyhedral terrain will be offset (based on their normal vec-
tors) to form a number of offset facets or together as the offset poly-
hedral terrain (℘so ). A point light source is restricted to be at an
offset vertex of a facet so that maximum number of incident facets
can share the same light sources (Fig. 20).
To generate an offset polyhedral terrain (℘so ), the mould
cavity or core polyhedral terrain is normally offset and the offset
distance (doff ) is preset by the mould designer or can be based on
the literature on mould design. The length of doff is considered
to withstand the compressive force during mould closing and
opening and to prevent the collapse of mould [11]. For each vertex
Vi of ℘s , one corresponding vertex on ℘so can be found. This vertex
is assigned as the offset vertex of Vi and denoted as Voi (Fig. 21).
Without loss of generality, it is assumed that all vertices of facet
on ℘s will have corresponding offset vertices, otherwise, the facet
is termed non-illuminable and will not be taken into consideration
in the subsequent procedures in the proposed methodology.
The detailed steps of the algorithm are mentioned below.
1. Identify number of direct illumination facets (nfi ) of an offset
vertex Voi .
For each offset vertex of the polyhedral terrain, the number of
direct illumination facets is counted. The corresponding numbers
for the vertices of the example is listed in Table 2.
2. Identify number of incident edges (nev i ) of a vertex Vi .
The number of edges incident to a vertex is also counted with-
out counting any decomposed edges from partially illuminated
facets. Some of these incident edges are convex and some are con-
cave, i.e.
nev i = ne−v e,i + ne−ca,i
where ne−v e,i is the number of convex edges, ne−ca,i is the number
of concave edges.
The corresponding numbers for the vertices of the example terrain
are listed in Table 3.
3. Point light source assignment.
A point light source Pj is first assigned to the offset vertex with
the largest number of direct illumination facets. In case two or
364 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373

Fig. 18. Classification of facet/edge combination, (a) Class 1, (b) Class 2, (c) Class 3, (d) Class 4, (e) Class 5, and (f) Class 6.

Fig. 19. (a) A Class 6 facet and its offset vertices and (b) the facet is decomposed into 4 convex sub-facets.

more offset vertices with the same number of direct illumination illumination facets, but V9 to V12 have more convex edges. Since
facets, the point light source will be assigned to the offset vertex their numbers of convex edges are the same, so the first point light
such that its corresponding vertex has more convex edges. In source P1 can be arbitrarily assigned to any vertex from V9 to V12
the above example, Vo9 to Vo16 have the largest number of direct (V9 is assigned in this example).
 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373 365

Fig. 20. A point light source will only be assigned to an offset vertex (Vo1 to Vo5 in this example) of a facet, but not at other positions, such as Po1 (a point offset from the
interior of the facet).

Table 4
The number of direct illumination facets for the remaining offset vertex.
Offset vertex Number of direct Offset vertex Number of direct
(Voi ) illumination facet (nfi ) (Voi ) illumination facet (nfi )

Vo1 – Vo9 –
Vo2 1 Vo10 2
Vo3 2 Vo11 4
Vo4 2 Vo12 2
Vo5 3 Vo13 2
Vo6 3 Vo14 3
Vo7 3 Vo15 4
Vo8 3 Vo16 3

Fig. 21. Offset vertices are assigned to the corresponding vertices.

Table 3
The number of incident edges for each vertex.
Vertex Number of incident edges Vertex Number of incident edges
(Vi ) (nevi , ne−ve.i , ne−ca,i ) (V i ) (nevi , ne−ve.i , ne−ca,i )
V1 3, 3, 0 V9 3, 3, 0
V2 3, 3, 0 V10 3, 3, 0
V3 3, 3, 0 V11 3, 3, 0
Fig. 22. The decomposed facets remaining for consideration after assigning P1 .
V4 3, 3, 0 V12 3, 3, 0
V5 3, 3, 0 V13 3, 1, 2
V6 3, 3, 0 V14 3, 1, 2
V7 3, 3, 0 V15 3, 1, 2
V8 3, 3, 0 V16 3, 1, 2

4. Number of direct illumination sources for a decomposed facet.

For each decomposed facet, the number of point light sources
directly illuminating it is counted. If the number is greater than or
equal to the threshold value nt (nt = 1 is assumed in this example),
or equal to the number of vertices of the decomposed facet, this
decomposed facet is omitted. After all the decomposed facets are
checked, more point light sources are needed if there are still
decomposed facets not illuminated. For the unassigned vertices,
their number of remaining facets and incident edges are updated
(Tables 4 and 5). In Fig. 22, the decomposed facets remained after
assigning P1 are shown. Fig. 23. The resultant point light source assignment.

5. Assigning more point light sources.

Step 3 and Step 4 are repeated and more point light sources are
added until all the decomposed facets are directly illuminated. In
the example, the successive point light source P2 to P4 is assigned
to Vo11 , Vo5 , and Vo7 respectively. The result of the point light source
assignment for the example is shown in Fig. 23.
6. Extracting point light sources positions for cooling channel
generation.
All the decomposed facets are now directly illuminated by point
light sources. The sources positions are output and will be used for
generating the cooling channel.
366 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373

Fig. 24. (a) Coolant inlet and outlet on the same side and (b) on different sides.

single cooling channel is assumed to be formed. The method for

ordering the point light sources is as follow:
1. Defining the coolant inlet and outlet positions of the cooling
channel.
For a single cooling channel, there is one coolant inlet (Pin )
and one coolant outlet (Pout ) and their positions are defined by
the cooling channel designer. Here, the cooling channel axis is
generated from the inlet to the outlet (see Fig. 24).
2. Generating projected point light sources.
All the point light sources Pj are projected on to a plane per-
pendicular to the parting direction of the mould so that the cor-
responding projected points Ppj are formed. If there are coincident
projected points (Fig. 25), only one projected point is taken into
Fig. 25. Coincident projected points are formed for the point light sources Pi and consideration in ordering the point light sources.
Pj . 3. Partitioning the projected points into a number of groups.
The plane which the projected points are on is partitioned into
Table 5 a number of vertical strip regions (Rk ) (i.e. parallel with the y axis)
The number of incident edges for the remaining vertex.
and the projected points are grouped accordingly. In Fig. 26(b) and
Vertex Number of incident Vertex Number of incident edges (c), the plane is partitioned into two and three regions. Normally,
(Vi ) edges (nev i , ne−v e.i , ne−ca,i ) (V i ) (nevi , ne−ve.i , ne−ca,i ) the resultant cooling channel axis curve will be in a near zig-zag
V1 – V9 – shape. The coolant inlet and outlet are assumed at R1 and the last
V2 2, 2, 0 V10 2, 2, 0 region respectively. The inlet and outlet will be on the same side
V3 3, 3, 0 V11 3, 3, 0
if even number of strip regions is formed and they will be on the
V4 2, 2, 0 V12 2, 2, 0
V5 3, 3, 0 V13 3, 1, 2 opposite side if odd number of strip regions is assumed. In the
V6 3, 3, 0 V14 3, 1, 2 proposed methodology, two regions (R1 and R2 ) are proposed to
V7 3, 3, 0 V15 3, 1, 2 be formed.
V8 3, 3, 0 V16 3, 1, 2
4. Identifying the starting point of the cooling channel axis curve.
The projected point at R1 which is the lowest one (i.e. smallest
3.4.4. Cooling channel formation value of y-coordinate) is considered as the start point of the cooling
Since coolant cannot flow through isolated point heat sinks in channel axis curve. If more than one projected point fulfills the
practice, the point light sources must be connected. A curve is criterion, the one with the largest value of x-coordinate is selected.
created such that it passes through all the assigned light sources. 5. Ordering the projected points in each region.
This curve is considered as the cooling channel axis and a cooling For odd regions (i.e. R2l−1 , l = 1, 2, . . .), the priorities for
channel is defined from it. In the proposed methodology, only a selecting the next projected point after a projected point is selected

Fig. 26. (a) The projected points, (b) two regions, and (c) three regions are formed.
 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373 367

Fig. 27. (a) A self-intersection loop is found when connecting the projected points in successive regions and (b) the self-intersection loop is eliminated.

Table 6
Number of direct illumination facets related to the offset vertex.
Offset vertex (Voi ) Number of direct illumination facet (nfi ) Colour Offset vertex (Voi ) Number of direct illumination facet (nfi ) Colour

Vo1 4 Red Vo8 4 Purple

Vo2 4 Blue Vo9 5 Brown
Vo3 4 Yellow Vo10 4 Magenta
Vo4 5 Green Vo11 4 Gray
Vo5 3 Lavender Vo12 2 Gold
Vo6 2 Cyan Vo13 5 Dark green
Vo7 3 Aquamarine Vo14 4 Dark blue

from the remaining projected points on the same group are as

follow:
i. The projected point with the smallest value of y-coordinate.
ii. If more than one projected point fulfills the first selection pri-
ority, the one with the largest value of x-coordinate is selected.
Similarly, for even regions (i.e. R2l , l = 1, 2, . . .), the selection
priorities are as follow:
i. The projected point with the largest value of y-coordinate.
ii. If more than one projected point fulfills the first selection prior-
ity, the one with the smallest value of x-coordinate is selected.
All the projected points on different regions are then ordered
accordingly. The last projected point on a region is then connected
with the first point on the successive region and the resultant order Fig. 28. The order of the point light sources is P1 , P2 , P3 , and P4 but not P1 , P3 , P2,
of the projected points is obtained. and P4 for coincident projected points P2 and P3 .

6. Checking self-intersection and reordering the projected points.

Normally, there is no self-intersection on the polylines joining
the projected points on the same region. However, it may not
be the case when the polylines of successive regions are joined
(Fig. 27(a)). In this case, the projected points within the loop
formed from the self-intersection are identified (Pj4 and Pj5 in this
example) and their order is reversed so that any self-intersection
is eliminated (Fig. 27)).
7. Forming the cooling channel axis curve.
A curve, ci (i = 1, 2, . . .) (smooth curve or polylines) is used to
fit all the projected points. This curve is projected onto the offset
of the mould surface (not the polyhedral terrain approximation)
and forms the resultant cooling channel axis, C . In case there
are coincident projected points, their corresponding point light
sources are automatically ordered according to the geometrical
and topological information of the offset mould surface. In Fig. 28,
an example is shown to illustrate this case.
8. Generate the cooling channel.
In order to generate the cooling channel, a channel cross-section
and a constant diameter along the channel must be set. A cooling
channel is generated by a sweeping operation along the cooling
channel’s axis. Since the cooling channel is on the offset mould
surface, a uniform distance between the cooling channel and the
mould surface can be ensured. The cooling channel design for the
mould surface in a 3D CAD platform can be exported for further
processing before direct fabrication of a rapid tool by suitable RT
or SFF’s technologies.
4. Results
Based on the point light source assignment algorithm and the
point light source ordering procedure, a cooling channel can be
created. In this section, a 3D shell model is used as an example
to illustrate the proposed methodology. The mould surface is
approximated as a polyhedral terrain and its facets are labeled
accordingly (see Figs. 29 and 30). By applying the point light source
assignment algorithm, the coolant inlet is set at first. The first and
the second point light source assignments are shown in Fig. 31. For
the proposed model, fourteen point light sources are assigned for
directly illuminating the whole polyhedral terrain (see Fig. 32(a)).
The geometric design of the cooling channel axis and the CCC is
shown in Fig. 32(b). The coolant inlet (Pin ) and outlet (Pout ) are
connected to P1 and P14 respectively and the axis topology is shown
in Fig. 33. The number of direct illumination facets related to
the offset vertex (represented by different colours) is tabulated in
Table 6. Computer-aided industrial design (CAID) software is used
368 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373
Fig. 29. (a) An example of a 3D shell cartoon face model, (b) inner parting surface of mould cavity, and (c) its polyhedral terrain.
Fig. 30. Facet identification for the polyhedral terrain.
to design and check the proposed polyhedral terrain under the
complete direct illumination by the point light source assignments.
The generation of the cooling channel’s axis is shown in Fig. 34(a). A
Table 7
Parameter settings for melt flow analysis.
Parameters Values
Analysis Cool + Flow
Mould temperature (°C) 100
Melt temperature (°C) 300
Coolant inlet temperature (°C) 20
Cooling channel diameter (mm) 6 mm
Coolant flow rate (Reynolds number) 10,000
curve fitting process is carried out to smooth the coolant flow along
the cooling channel (see Fig. 34(b)). The generation of the cooling
channel is shown in Fig. 35. After the sweeping process, the cooling
channel inside the mould cavity plate is obtained (see Fig. 36).
To validate the cooling effectiveness between the manual
design and the proposed one, melt flow analysis is carried out
to investigate the part’s temperature. Moldflow Plastics Insight
(MPI 3.1) is used as the tool for cooling analysis. In the analysis,
the diameters for both the conventional and the proposed cooling
channels are set to 6 mm according to design guidelines in
the literature [14,17,27]. The mesh generations in MPI 3.1 of
conventional cooling channel and CCC are shown in Fig. 35. To
reduce the variation of results, major parameters for cooling
analysis are the same for both types of cooling channels (Table 7).
The graphical results of melt flow analysis for the proposed
cooling channel are shown in Fig. 37. In Table 8, the comparison
of the results for the conventional cooling channel design and
the proposed one are summarized. It can be seen that better
 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373 369

Fig. 31. Point light source assignment for the polyhedral terrain, (a) the first point light source and (b) the second point light source.

Fig. 32. (a) Point light source setting and (b) connectivity of all point light sources.

Table 8
Comparison of results of melt flow analysis between the straight-line drilled cooling
channel and the proposed CCC.
Fig. 33. Connection of point light sources assigned in the example case.
Melt flow analysis Straight-line drilled Proposed CCC
cooling channel
performance in terms of temperature difference of the part, the
Temperature difference, part (°C) 100.2 77.09
volumetric shrinkage, the in-cavity residual stress, and the circuit
Volumetric shrinkage (%) 7.349 7.341
metal temperature of the example model can be achieved for In-cavity residual stress (MPa) 0.2920 0.1992
the proposed cooling channel. A smaller temperature difference Circuit metal temperature 21.34 21.24
implies that a near uniform cooling on the whole mould parting (coolant outlet) (°C)
surface can be achieved along the cooling channel. Lower values in (coolant inlet: 20 °C)

volumetric shrinkage and in cavity residual stress in the proposed

design implies that the result of near uniform cooling between
cooling channel and the part’s surface can reduce the occurrence produced can be ensured. As shown in Fig. 38(e) and (f), the circuit
of injection mould defect formations and the quality of the part metal temperature (at coolant outlet) in the proposed CCC design

Fig. 34. Cooling channel axis formation, (a) line segments and (b) curve fitting.
370 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373
Fig. 35. Cooling channel generation in CAID platform.
Fig. 36. Cooling channel inside mould cavity plate.
(21.24 °C) is lower than the straight-line drilled one (21.34 °C). The
result indicated that the coolant temperature difference between
the coolant inlet (20 °C) and the coolant outlet in the proposed CCC
is slightly smaller than the straight-line drilled one. Heat energy
from the mould surface can be carried away from the coolant inlet
to the coolant outlet. The proposed method for preliminary cooling
channel design can provide a near uniform heat transfer between
the mould surface and cooling channel surface effectively.
Fig. 37. Mesh being generated in MPI 3.1 of (a) straight-line drilled cooling channel and (b) CCC.
5. Discussion
5.1. Parameter settings and assumptions of injection mould cooling
process
This paper proposes an alternative design method for a prelim-
inary cooling channel design. The proposed method can offer an
automatic and a consistent design solution rather than conven-
tional manual cooling channel varied by the experience of differ-
ent mould engineers. Comparing to the existing cooling channel
designs, the proposed visibility based cooling channel design pro-
vides a near uniform cooling with narrow temperature difference
at different regions of the part. The chance of injection mould de-
fect formations can be reduced by the proposed method. Errors
or design inconsistency found from manual design can be greatly
reduced.
Some assumptions or parameter settings are set (e.g. cooling
channel diameter, circular cross-section of the cooling channel,
offset distance between cooling channel surface and mould parting
surface, or cooling inlet position) for the automatic design inputs.
These parameter settings are based on common guidelines of
mould cooling channel design [1,24]. These also aim to produce
a practical and a more consistent design solution with fewer
errors occurring than during manual design. The proposed CCC
design using the visibility approach can be extended to parallel
or multiple cooling layouts to fulfill the shape complexity of
the mould surface. Further research investigation in complexity
analysis of an algorithm has to be done in future work.
5.2. Issue on illumination for point light source assignment
In the point light source assignment, only facets directly illu-
minated from the same point light source are counted, see Fig. 39.
However, facets indirectly illuminated may also be taken into con-
sideration to obtain a more accurate illumination intensity or heat
transfer capability.
5.3. Effect of cooling channel geometry on coolant flow rate
Normally, the geometry of the cooling channel will affect the
flow rate of the coolant. More changes in the flow direction and
an increase in cooling channel length will cause a higher pressure
drop on the coolant flow. The pumping pressure for the coolant to
sustain turbulent flow may be considered to enhance the proposed
methodology.
5.4. Effect on offset distance between the point light source and the
mould surface
In the proposed methodology, the cooling channel is assumed
to be on the offset mould surface and the offset distance is preset
 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373 371

a b

d
c

e f

g h

Fig. 38. Results of (a) temperature difference from straight-line drilled cooling channel (100.2 °C), (b) temperature difference from straight-line drilled cooling channel
(77.09 °C), (c) volumetric shrinkage from straight-line drilled cooling channel (7.349%), (d) volumetric shrinkage from CCC (7.341%), (e) in cavity residual stress from
straight-line drilled cooling channel (0.2920 MPa), (f) in cavity residual stress from CCC (0.1992 MPa), (g) circuit metal temperature from straight-line drilled cooling channel
(21.34 °C), and (h) circuit metal temperature from CCC (21.24 °C).
372 K.M. Au et al. / Computer-Aided Design 43 (2011) 356–373
Fig. 39. The shaded facet is directly and indirectly illuminated by the point light
sources P1 and P2 respectively.
Fig. 40. Point light source P1 cannot illuminate f2 . By increasing the offset distance,
P1′ can illuminate f2 .
a and B-Q14R). Their financial supports have made this research to
b [3] Isayev AI. Injection and compression molding fundamentals. Marcel Dekker;
Fig. 41. (a) Weak illumination and (b) facet decomposition with extra point light
sources.
by the mould designer. From the visibility concept, the height of a
point light source from the mould surface would affect the number
of facets being indirectly illuminated by this source (Fig. 40).
Moreover, the distance between the cooling channel and the
mould surface would also affect the cooling time and performance.
The determination of an optimal offset distance may be taken
into consideration in the future development of the proposed
methodology.
Besides, the proposed methodology only ensures that all facets
or the whole mould surface be visible to the cooling channels. The
distance between the cooling channel (such as CCC) and mould
surface is, however, not constant. The heat transfer effectiveness
between the mould surface and the cooling channel may be further
improved by incorporating a CCC with a variable radius or distance
to the mould surface [48].
5.5. Point light source setting for long and narrow facet
Without loss of generality, a facet is cancelled out after being il-
luminated by a point light source. However, poor illumination may
result at the farthest part of a long and narrow facet illuminated
by a point light source (see Fig. 41(a)). It can be solved by further
decomposition of this long and narrow facet into small ones with
addition of extra point light source (see Fig. 41(b)).
6. Conclusion
In this paper, an automatic design methodology using a visibil-
ity technique is proposed for generating a cooling channel with a
complex shape for a thermoplastic injection mould. By applying
the methodology, a better design of cooling channel for its mould
surface results in a short time independent of the experience of the
mould engineer from a manual design of a traditional straight-line
drilled cooling channel. The proposed automatic method can pro-
vide a better cooling channel design in a short time which is similar
to the optimal CAE results obtained. The number of design modifi-
cations before the generation of optimal results can be greatly re-
duced. From melt flow analysis, the more complex shaped cooling
channel does provide a more uniform cooling performance when
compared to the traditional method. In consequence, the occur-
rence of injection mould defect formations can be reduced.
Acknowledgements
The work presented in this paper was supported by grants
from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (including G-U697
complete successfully.
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